A study of the causes and consequences of imperial decline and collapse. While they warn against facile comparisons, the contributors also urge us to step back from the immediacy of current events to consider the possible significance of historical precedents.

This ambitious and important volume brings together a group of some of the most outstanding scholars in political science, history, and historical sociology to examine the causes of imperial decline and collapse. While they warn against facile comparisons, they also urge us to step back from the immediacy of current events to consider the possible significance of historical precedents.Is imperial decline inevitable, or can a kind of imperial stasis be maintained indefinitely? What role, if any, does the growth of bureaucracies needed to run large and complex political systems of this type play in economic and political stagnation? What is the balance of power between the center and the peripheries, between the dominant nationality and minorities? What coping mechanisms do empires tend to develop and what influence do these have? Is modernization the inexorable source of imperial decline and ultimate collapse? And what resources, including the imperial legacy, are available for political, social, and economic reconstruction in the aftermath of collapse? These are just a few of the tantalizing questions addressed by the contributors to this fascinating and timely volume. }

How Empires End
(Charles Tilly. )
The End of Empires
(E. J. Hobsbawm. ) * Collapse Of Empires: Causes
Thinking About Empire
(Alexander J. Motyl. )
The Ottoman Empire
(Caglar Keyder. )
The Habsburg Empire
(Solomon Wank. )
The Russian Empire
(Mark von Hagen. )
The Soviet Union
(Victor Zaslavsky. ) * Collapse Of Empires: Consequences
Thinking About Consequences of Empire
(Karen
Barkey. )
The Ottoman Empire
(Serif Mardin. )
The Habsburg Empire
(Istvn Dek. )
The Russian Empire
(Ronald G. Suny. )
Aftermaths
of Empire and the Unmixing of Peoples
(Rogers Brubaker. )
Conclusion
(K. Barkey and M. von Hagen.)